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What is prophecy but language that compels, propels, impels… I think they call this perlocutionary speech, but someone who will know is Prof. Warda:

Spring 2009, she teaches her first Intro to Sociolinguistics. She is delighted to see brown and black faces, as well as white — sometimes it feels to her, at Middlestate, like she is suffocating. But not here, not in this class. There are nineteen kids all counted; they talk about language variants, they talk about standardization. She sees some students breathe out in relief when she says, your Englishes are not wrong or ugly. Mine, neither, she says; immigrant Englishes are neither wrong nor ugly. Some students purse their lips, but she knows by the end of the class they too will get it. There’s nothing truly superior about speaking one variant over the other. Those in power make the rules and police them; those in power call their own speech good and pure, and the rest of us must scramble and aspire.

We did contact Prof. Warda (c/o ROSE LEMBERG and The Shapes of Us, Translucent to Your Eye) for her opinion on Lucia Lucilla and the Prophecy, but unfortunately she was too busy to get back to us. She suggested we should get in touch with the editor of Language in Society, so we might try that next.

Over the course of the new term, Pensri constantly wondered how creating art that drew from their own heritage could be anything except authentic, and how Ajan Emily — who was not a Jamathewi native like Pensri but one of those sunburnt Angrit — could possibly be an authority on the subject. Furthermore, since neither of them had seen a thewada, both were equally ignorant of the reality of such beings. Thewada did not simply turn up in canals like mischievous nang ngueak or freely flit between mortal and heavenly realms as kinnaree did; they were protective of their true forms, taking on special guises on their occasional visits, revealing themselves only rarely. Unsurprisingly, thewada hadn’t expressed an opinion about their representation in human art.

Our source suggests Pensri’s thewada may express their opinions forcefully in coming months, if Salus is unsuccessful in her quest!

Another possible prophet arises! Does ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL foresee the future or reveal the past in The Dauphin’s Metaphysics, an account of how to overcome death?

“It’s hitting me — early,” the Dauphin said, stuttering a bit.

“What is?” I asked, though I knew perfectly well.

“My mother could walk until almost fifty.”

“It would be unethical to commit a child to a life of delusion,” I said, neither sitting nor setting down my tin lamp. “And it would serve no purpose, for the child would never be you. The material-configuration view no more allows transfer between bodies than does the Elementary soul view. What you seek is a metaphysical impossibility.”

“If the memories were perfect enough, the personality similar enough. If the child knew that my past was his own. If he took up my goals and views unquestioningly, only rethinking them sometimes in the way I sometimes also rethink….”

There may be more to learn from ERIC SCHWITZGEBEL! According to our contact, this potential prophet offers more philosophical reflections on the possibility of mind transfer by hypnosis at this link. Additionally, he has shared another of his visions featuring mind transfer by hypnosis, this time from the perspective of the mnemonist.

No stealing, no smoking. Fair enough. No photocopying, no scanning. Well, it might damage the books. But for every three reasonable requests, there was a big ask.

The researcher will not discuss the Harrad Collection in person or on social media.

Texts from the Collection will not be added to referencing apps or software including (but not limited to) Zotero, EndNote, RefMe…

Modernity isn’t inevitable, the librarian had said. She knew about social media and referencing software, but had decided to ban them. She wasn’t an aging dusty stereotype. She was well informed, and gatekeeping.

Could Lady Harrad have found the codex from which the new Prophecy fragment comes? Is that why only a page has surfaced? Is the rest still waiting to be smuggled out of St Simon’s?

Our contact adds that E. SAXEY may be able to put us on the trail of other likely libraries:

Also, I was keen to see Heythrop’s incredible collection of incunabula – early printed books – as I knew that Lord Peter Wimsey, my favourite fictional detective, collected them. They’re very rare and highly prized. Having seen the collection, I can say: they’re also dull as hell! Visually speaking. Pages of cramped black text and no pics. Illuminated manuscripts still have my heart.

Another sighting that falls into the category of Signs of the End Times! In ‘Follow Me Down’ reporter NICOLETTE BARISCHOFF describes an orphanage full of highly unlikely children: wings, seal-boys and, least likely of all, young Kora Gillespie, who is not a demi-god:

Kora Gillespie’s face was exactly a seven-year-old girl’s face, and not a striking one; there were no horns pushing up through the pale hair. The pupils of the pale, browless, puddle-gray eyes were almost disappointingly round and human.

But it was always unsettling to Ramona how quickly Kora could pull back from manic bursts of fiercely determined activity, to sit in almost unblinking silence.

And then there was a kind of fluttering smirk that never really left her mouth when she was silent that made her face look not much like a seven-year-old’s at all.

We know the apocalypse will be heralded by strange signs and alarming harbingers. Lucia Lucilla has told us something of what to expect, but as we have only part of her Prophecy we may expect to be surprised by other unlikely events. Recent minotaur sightings discussed by researcher SEAN ROBINSON in the conclusive report ‘Minotaur: An Analysis of the Species’ definitely fit the category:

3. The labyrinth always comes.

In many ways, this last fact plays the dominant factor in the genesis of the minotaur. Though the socio-economic, racial, and geographic origins may be varied and are, according to the study conducted, as varied as the variables at play, in the end, like the modern cuckoo, the minotaur is a brood parasite (possibly symbiote) and is, in the end, always raised by something entirely foreign to its native parents’ species.

Because he is an EXEMPLARY RESEARCHER Sean Robinson has released (some of) the data for his study! WOULD THAT ALL SCIENTISTS WERE SO TRANSPARENT. You can find the questionnaire for Responder 22 (“Smokey”) here.

We know the apocalypse is upon us. Lucia Lucilla makes that painfully clear in the recently discovered fragment of the Codex Lucis. But will there be other prophecies? Should we expect new prophets to arise in the shadow of the End Times?

According to as yet unconfirmed prophet ABRA STAFFIN-WIEBE, who predicts a future (post-apocalyptic? apocalypse averted? we may never know!) featuring remarkably intimate field research on alien life-forms in “And Other Definitions of Family”,

In my imagining of the distant future, Reader’s Digest still exists. And they have a humor section called “Aliens Do the Damnedest Things.”

Unfortunately, story readers don’t have this context and so would find a line like, “So write Reader’s Digest,” to be incredibly anachronistic. And they’re right, because the story doesn’t have space for the explanation, which would ruin the joke anyway. So I had to take the line out. But! Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

There’s more here, including extras and an alternate scene from “And Other Definitions of Family” that suggest the future truly may not be set in stone.

Our source adds:

You can find more of Abra Staffin-Wiebe’s stories and bonus material for “And Other Definitions of Family” at http://www.aswiebe.com/. Join the newsletter for discussion of new stories (not just the author’s) and other fun stuff every two months. Plus get a free ebook!